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Senate Housing Bill Requires eBay, Amazon, Google, and All Credit Card Companies to Report Transactions to the Government — FreedomWorks.org — Here’s anothe little piece of crap they’ve snuck past everyone. Have you ever heard of this?
Hidden deep in Senator Christopher Dodd’s 630-page Senate housing legislation is a sweeping provision that affects the privacy and operation of nearly all of America’s small businesses. The provision, which was added by the bill’s managers without debate this week, would require the nation’s payment systems to track, aggregate, and report information on nearly every electronic transaction to the federal government.
FreedomWorks Chairman Dick Armey, as we read more on Crediful, commented: “This is a provision with astonishing reach, and it was slipped into the bill just this week. Not only does it affect nearly every credit card transaction in America, such as Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express, but the bill specifically targets payment systems like eBay’s PayPal, Amazon, and Google Checkout that are used by many small online businesses. The privacy implications for America’s small businesses are breathtaking.”
Someone with all your credit card information can determine a lot. Good way to find political enemies in a dictatorship.
Found by jrc.
Any example of government action can easily be argued away as necessary for our safety. It is incremental therefore no real danger, right?
Senator Dodd (no relation) is a man caught up and blinded by his own selfish desire to matter in a town that thrives on power.
His deceptive action is a great example of why politicians should be viewed like a baby’s diaper. They are quickly soiled and should be changed often.
Those burner credit cards you see at the register are looking more and more like a good idea.
#15
No quick comments from me, because, unlike the usual suspects on the right..when I don’t understand an issue yet, I feel disinclined to post an opinion. I understand that this thought process is hard for you to grasp. I’m am now torn between believing the phrasing of an inveterate liar (Dick Armey), and Mr. Mustard. Hmmm…I wonder who’s analysis is more thoughtful and reasoned….^_^
#15 – guadildo, so you want to have a dick size contest on this? Alright this is a despicable attempt at undermining personal privacy and possibly a way to pay off some bad debt. Where did that debt come from? This and other Demo actions pale in contrast to the Repu realities as they exit today. I believe both parties are capable of horrendous activities, but only the Republican party has validated that belief, and then some.
Mustard and bobo, are you guys for the NSA wiretapping then? Why not call it a non-invasive way of preventing terrorism. You shouldn’t have privacy for breaking the law, right?!?! Making phone calls is inherently public, right? If you don’t have anything to hide, you shouldn’t be afraid, right?!?!
Or maybe you’re just partisan hacks.
#35 -Blahblah
Blah blah blah. Blah. Blah blah blah blah. That about sums up your comment.
How is requiring eBay or PayPal to provide summary stats on their transactions in any way comparable to allowing illegal warrantless wiretapping of Amerecan citizens, or granting Big Business ISPs and telcos immunity for handing over private personal information to Big Brother?
Sheesh. Your screen name is spot-on, given the quality of your comments.
#35–blah==essentially I do agree. I don’t see an inherent privacy right in telephone conversations. I do however recognize the long legal precedent for calling it such though so I won’t hijack the thread with my own defined above formulation of legitimate privacy vs puerile desires for anonymity in a constantly compacting society.
Isn’t there some violation of logic ((don’t do it Mustard!!)) to extend notions of “privacy” what is inherently a public action?
I am reminded of Get Smarts “Zone of Privacy” or whatever that plastic thing was that came down for private converstions. It never worked. Things that don’t work shouldn’t be qualities they don’t naturally exhibit.
#37 – Bobster
>>puerile desires for anonymity in a
>>constantly compacting society.
So you think that the well-recognized right of American citizens not to have Big Brother electronically tap into their telephone conversations and internet activities without Big Brother having to provide evidence of why they should be allowed constitutes a “puerile desire for anonymity”?
Sheesh.
#38–Mustard, you have it correctly, and you are atleast on point.
Yes–I am against Big Brother when it takes ACTION against people–picks them up, questions them down at the police station, threatens their physical liberty by incarceration. Those actions should be restricted to due process of law.
Passive monitoring to me is one way to avoid the above. To restate, “privacy” to me is basically within your head, what you think, write, read. It violates the “solipcism” of a person to think what is individually centered should be extended out in fact to the World Wide Web==how can an international phone call, conference call, the web, that interacts with millions be person centered?
Makes no sense to me. But if the majority think such international communication should be private, I don’t object to this democratic impulse being respected at law. And since it is, BushCo should be impeached and jailed for violating the constitution by his illegal actions, and so should the telecoms.
Logically, it doesn’t float for me.
#39 – GigG
>>There is no Federal sales tax in the US.
No, but there’s a Federal income tax, both personal and corporate.
Welcome to the impending Federal Sales Tax to pay for illegal’s health care and copious amounts of other “free” benefits thanks to the American taxpayer.
Has nothing to do with federal sales tax. Probably a first step to collecting income tax on online sales.
#41 Yes, but that’s not what #5 said.
So now I have to be worried about the DHS revoking my concealed carry permit since they will know that I purchase Lexapro on my AMEX card.
I guess I need to double up to 20 mg a day to provide relief from this Federal Guberment crap!
#45 – SparkyOne
>>they will know that I purchase Lexapro on
>>my AMEX card.
Not unless you tell them, they won’t. Where the fuck in any of this do you see any evidence of the government tracking individual citizens’ buying habits?
And fuck those telecom bastards. May they rot in the hell of everlasting bankruptcy for turning over records to Dumbya’s storm troopers. Sue the pants off the motherfuckers.
No they are just simply ideologues. “Their team” could crap on a plate and they would proclaim it brilliant.
Try “cone of silence”. Don’t quote things if you don’t know what they are called. A simple Google search would have revealed the correct name.
#47–gquaglia–I’m seriously interested. What/who is my team?
#47
I can only think of one thing that I almost always agree with MM and bobbo on..and that’s what a bunch of thoughtless retards the usual group of dittoheads are…^_^. Most of the rest of the time we are quite happy to slag each other off at least as much as we go after you…^_^
Oh..and crap on a plate sounds positively yummy after the last 8 years of what you guys have served up.
This story is FUD, being spread by tax-evading eBay sellers who want to keep on not paying taxes. I suppose taking away the free lunch from eBay junkies is a bit mean, but tax fraud is tax fraud, eh?
>>Passive monitoring to me is one way to
>>avoid the above.
You consider planting bugs, hacking into communications made with a reasonable expectation of privacy, and strongarming telcos into turning over personal information on their customers “passive monitoring”?
Judas Priest, man, I’d hate to see what qualifies as “active monitoring” in your world. I can only imagine it involves tasers, waterboarding, and Electro-Technic BD-10As applied to the genitals.
In any case, I don’t see what the bfd is with the real story in this thread. I have to pay my damned income taxes. Why shouldn’t Google, eBay, and credit card companies (who skim a percentage off of everything that goes through their shop) be obligated to do the same. It’s not as though they don’t already collect and store all that private information on us (which they’re not required to provide under this proposal).
Summary stats only, man! How does this even have a negative impact on anyone, other than the Korporate Overlords who are trying to pull a fast one by saying they make less money than they really make?
#52–Mustard==passive monitoring? I said something about that. I’d be interested in knowing who/what you are responding to. Sounds like an informed chap who might need some support against your idiosyncratic needling.
The only two things a Democrat politician can do is tax and spend. This provision is the precursor to a new taxing mechanism….the beginning of federal taxation to the Internet and its enterprises.
#53 – Bobbo
What the fuck are you talking about???
#54 – Hawk
>>the beginning of federal taxation to the
>>Internet and its enterprises.
Are you saying that businesses that make money on the internet are currently exempt from taxes??
Hmmm??
#54–Hawk==which is better?
A–tax and spend?
B–tax, borrow, and spend?
Surely the goal is a balanced budget? Expenditures matched to revenue. But neither party does that, and both parties tax, so, absent some explanation, you are shoveling drivel.
>>Sounds like an informed chap who might need
>>some support against your idiosyncratic
>>needling.
You forget what you said, Bobster?